State ministers must declare assets: BJP

Chennai: With Union ministers making a declaration of their assets recently, the BJP here has demanded that state ministers do so too.

The saffron party’s state president Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan, who has raised the issue in the backdrop of protracted agitations across Tamil Nadu and also raking up the issue of the alleged collapse of law and order, said that the government, led by Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and his cabinet ministers, should make public the assets they held.

“All the ministers of the BJP government have declared their assets as Modiji believes in clean and transparent administration. The state ministers too should follow suit and set a precedent here,” she said. The lone BJP minister from the state has done so.

In August this year, Union minister of state for heavy industries Pon Radhakrishnan declared his assets: he is worth '6.97 crore, owning lands worth Rs 6.94 crore in his Kanyakumari district.

The second issue that the BJP leadership is pursuing is ‘total prohibition’, a subject on which the previous DMK government had declared that it was not possible for TN to become a dry state.

Electricity and prohibition minister Natham Viswanathan said that the government too was in favour of enforcing total prohibition, but this could become a reality after all the states in India became dry. “But the BJP members will continue to agitate till the last Tasmac shop is shut,” Dr Tamilisai said.